The 1st-place winner will be published in Glimmer Train and will receive 10 copies of that issue. Second- and 3rd-place win $500/$300, respectively, or, if accepted for publication, $700.

Winners and finalists will be announced in the May 1 bulletin, and contacted directly the previous week.

Most submissions run 1,500 - 5,000 words, but stories as long as 12,000 words are fine. Writing Guidelines

Note: 9 of the last 10 first-place New Writers winners have been those authors' first print publications!

Essays in this bulletin:

Anthony DeCasper: We've all heard the formula before: to be a good writer you need to write, read, rewrite, and reread. Rinse and repeat. But what does that mean, really? (read more)

Abby Geni: I have come to love using back story in my writing. I find that flashbacks can vivify and enrich a story, deepening the characters and expanding the world immeasurably. (read more)

Karen Russell: We've been inundated with doom-mongering of late. And there is also this concern about hyperconnectivity and hyperarousal. The world is changing at such a velocity, it's really true that it's a strange thing to be awake and watch it happen. (read more)

Results of the October Very Short Fiction Award

Winners have been contacted, as have the Top 25 and Honorable Mentions. Our thanks to all of you for letting us read your work—what an extraordinary and moving batch of stories!

1st place goes to Anthony DeCasper for "Redshift." (This will be his 1st publication!)

2nd place goes to Stefanie Freele for "Everything But What We Need."

3rd place goes to Parker Young for "Lighter Fluid."

Feel free to forward this bulletin to your writer friends. As you know, the bulletin is free and meant to inform and to promote writers. (We never share your info.) People can sign up for bulletins themselves here. Missed a bulletin? They're archived here.

One of the most respected short-story journals in print, Glimmer Train is represented in recent editions of the Pushcart Prize: Best of the Small Presses, New Stories from the Midwest, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories, New Stories from the South, Best American Mystery Stories, Best of the West, New Stories from the Southwest, and Best American Short Stories.

Every story published in Glimmer Train is unsolicited. And every year, we pay out over $50,000 to fiction writers.